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Family Wall Homecoming

7-9:37 AM: Made breakfast/tea for the kids and lounged around, trying to figure out what to do about the mess of newspapers on the wall. But, like arizaphale says, it is a rectangle. How could I go wrong? And so does Wendy, and Kirsten and Jani loved it — and so did all of the other emails.

9:38 AM: Once I decided to go for it, I gave myself a deadline of 6:30 p.m. Sunday. That’s the hour my husband was coming home from his 8-day Ironman Training Camp in Tuscon.What a nice welcome home surprise this would be.

9:45 AM: While walking to the shower, realize that my house is a mess. This is no way to host a homecoming. So, I add “clean house” to my to-do list deadline.

10:37 AM: Invite neighbor across the street over to approve of wall. No, it wasn’t Jodi.

11:00 AM: Gather kids to make their beds, pick up the floor in their rooms.

11:15 AM: Throw first load of laundry into machine, grab hammer and a handful of nails from the basement.

11:47 AM: Decide to work from the middle out. Hang photo, and use tape measure to figure out where nail should go, based on placement of newspaper.

11:49 AM: First picture is done.

12:05 PM: Realize the measuring just wastes my time. Much easier to just put a nail in the wall, hang picture and figure out whether nail needs to go up or down. This means there are probably 3 nail holes per frame — but the system is working for me, and the picture hides the nail holes.

1:00 PM: I’m making far more progress than I ever anticipated. Realize that I will get this done… wasn’t sure how long it would take, but was fairly confident I couldn’t get the whole wall done in one day. Boy, was I thankfully wrong.

1:45 PM: Start assigning chores. One to sweep the family room, another to empty the dishwasher, another to make some muffins for me to snack on, and another to load the dishwasher. Lots of complaining.

1:47 PM: Assign “lunch” to oldest son. Mac and cheese for everyone.

2:00 PM: Make “Welcome Home” Sign.

3:00 PM: Between loads of laundry, and breaking up “chore wars,” realize that I need a homecoming meal. Pull roast out of freezer, begin sauteing it in salt and herbs, and pop it into the oven with potatoes, carrots and celery.

3:22 PM: I am putting up the final four pictures. Couldn’t be more excited.

3:45 PM: I am done. Call all the boys in to see, and then I run to the camera store to pick up last batch of photos.